Scotland

“Until we have the courage to recognize cruelty for what it is — whether its victim is human or animal — we cannot expect things to be much better in this world. We cannot have peace among men whose hearts delight in killing any living creature. By every act that glorifies or even tolerates such moronic delight in killing, we set back the progress of humanity.”
Rachel Carson

The hunting, shooting, slaughter, massacre whatever you want to call this cruel insanity – certainly not sport or recreation- of helpless animals is now in full swing here in the UK. I find this a very depressing time to be out and about in the countryside as this sadistic minority can pop up almost anywhere as they pursue relentlessly their cruel pastime.

Scottish Mountain Hare – who would want to kill such a beautiful gentle animal?

Many animals lose their lives at this time of year simply to satisfy the warped pleasures of a small group of people. One of these animals is the Scottish mountain hare.

If you loath hunting and shooting please join me in signing and sharing the following petition calling for VisitScotland to stop promoting recreational mountain hare shooting.

“Wouldn’t it be better to encourage visitors to pay to watch and wonder at wild animals, rather than blow them to bits? Shooters argue that mountain hare populations are healthy on sporting estates. But conservation groups say their status is uncertain, and are demanding a halt to mass culls. Even if mountain hares are surviving, is it acceptable to market their mass shooting as a hobby? Is this the kind of role a modern, civilised Scotland really wants to have in the world? We doubt it.”

Tens of thousands of hares are shot in Scotland

Forty percent of hares killed in Scotland is for so called “sport”

Hunters some from all over the world to kill Scottish wildlife.

More are culled/killed by gamekeepers on sporting estates to help preserve red grouse for shooting.

These amazing creatures are being mercilessly slaughtered so that there are more red grouse for the wealthy to shoot come grouse shooting season. While the shooting of these tiny birds is an atrocity in its own right that should no longer be allowed or condoned in any ethical society, it is compounded by the killing of other creatures who may interfere with the numbers of grouse available, for instance, it is feared that hares spread a disease which kills the grouse. Hares are also shot even in the Cairngorms National Park by hunting parties simply for the sadistic thrill of killing a defenceless wild animal. As a result of this barbarity as many as 24,529 hares were killed in Scotland between March 2006 and February 2007. The mentality of such people I have to add is beyond my comprehension.

These animals have a right to their lives as do the grouse as do all animals with whom we share this world. When are we going to stop the wanton killing of defenceless animals. Most of us don’t want this to happen Most people so not know that it happens. So please share this information widely.

“Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings.”Nelson Mandela

Please support the following National Day of Protest in Glasgow – Please consider supporting this protest even if you do not live in Scotland, we need solidarity to end the austerity measures that are having the greatest impact on people who are sick, disabled or unemployed.

‘If Westminster fails to deliver [HOME RULE AND FULL POWERS OVER SOCIAL SECURITY] there will be an UPRISING in Scotland and we entertain do doubts whatsoever that we will be an independent nation within a very short span of time indeed. If you do not give us these powers the Union is finished. Be in no doubt.’

STATEMENT

We reject the UK Government’s unconscionable Welfare Reform Act and policies which are literally killing our people and which are immiserating millions.

As disabled people and citizens of Scotland, we demand nothing less than full autonomy for the Scottish Government over all matters relating to welfare, ownership of our natural resources and national assets, income from taxation and measures to address and eradicate the poverty that blights the lives of nearly one million people in our land.

If Westminster fails to deliver there will be an uprising in Scotland and we entertain do doubts whatsoever that we will be an independent nation within a very short span of time indeed. If you do not give us these powers the Union is finished. Be in no doubt.

We are aware that 10,000 submissions have been made so we will make this brief. These are the reason that we demand full powers over our own affairs. Rocks would melt in the Sun before the catastrophe of UK Welfare ‘Reforms’ would be introduced by Scottish politicians elected by the people of Scotland. This is not the Scottish way. This is the land of Robert Burns.

This is absolutely anathema and barbaric to us.

When Scotland sends 59 Yes party MPs to Westminster in May that will be fighting to repeal the lethal and despicable Welfare Reform Act. It’s now time for all to unite with us and say together: “No More!”

This is an updated tragic list of widely reported welfare-related deaths of the United Kingdom’s sick and/or disabled people. The tip of an iceberg. We will always fight for freedom from Westminster’s murderous policies and support the struggle of all Britain’s sick and/or disabled people simultaneously, wherever they are from.

If you are in any doubt there is worse to come please note the following Facebook comment which I have included here for easy access, and also because I don’t know how to directly link to individual comments in Facebook which soon progress down the page quickly as other comments are added and are often missed. After reading this and viewing the video, people in Scotland and the rest of the UK have good reason to be afraid:

“This is a profoundly shocking scene – I need to draw everybody’s attention to (a very poorly) disabled Baroness Jane Campbell’s question to Welfare Minister Lord Freud in the Lords yesterday asking “will disabled people be protected” from further £12 billion life-destroying cuts to be announced by Osborne in July?

His ice-cold, callous response is truly spine-chilling:

Baroness Campbell of Surbiton (CB): My Lords, during the general election campaign the Prime Minister stated his desire to “enhance” and “safeguard” PIP. Will the Minister say how the Government plan to fulfil that election promise to disabled people and reassure them that their payments will be protected in the Chancellor’s up-and-coming Budget?

Lord Freud: We will continue to support the disabled and the vulnerable in months to come.

Baroness Sherlock (Lab): My Lords, maybe I can follow that up a little more. The noble Baroness, Lady Campbell of Surbiton, specifically asked for an assurance of the Prime Minister’s guarantee that he would continue to support disabled people and that their benefits would be protected. Let me give the Minister the opportunity to give that. The Government want to make £12 billion of welfare cuts. Will he say today that none of those will fall on disabled people?

Lord Freud: I repeat what I said: we will continue to support disabled people and the vulnerable through that process.

Read About how frightening it really gets for vulnerable benefit claimants

“It gets to the point where you’re frightened of the thud of the postman coming up your path, “You’re fearful of a brown envelope, in case it’s from the DWP [Department for Work and Pensions]. You’re fearful of a white envelope in case it’s from Atos.”

The following is a detailed rundown of all the benefit cuts this evil government have put in place.Shocking that people voted for more of the same. If you voted Tory you are of course complicit with what amounts to a calculated assault on the most vulnerable in our society. An attack on disabled people much like the beginning of the propaganda that lead to the Nazi’s persecution of the sick and disabled.

‘The Disability Audit: the eight coalition policies that have hit disabled people

“…a 32 year old who had all his toes amputated after being forced to spend last winter sleeping in a tent. Mitchell Keenan, from Skelmersdale, in West Lancashire, was evicted from his four-bed house because the bedroom tax meant his family could no longer pay the rent. He was diagnosed with frostbite six weeks ago when his family noticed his toes had turned black. His 62-year-old father, Keith, also evicted, has malnourishment, scabies and dementia.”

“One saw a bird dying, shot by a man. It was flying with rhythmic beat and beautifully, with such freedom and lack of fear. And the gun shattered it; it fell to the earth and all the life had gone out of it. A dog fetched it, and the man collected other dead birds. He was chattering with his friend and seemed so utterly indifferent. All that he was concerned with was bringing down so many birds, and it was over as far as he was concerned. They are killing all over the world. Those marvellous, great animals of the sea, the whales, are killed by the million, and the tiger and so many other animals are now becoming endangered species. Man is the only animal that is to be dreaded.”
Jiddu Krishnamurti

The Glorious Twelfth is a term often used to refer to 12th August, the start of the shooting season for Red Grouse, and to a lesser extent the Ptarmigan in Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Today is one of the busiest days in the shooting season, and large numbers of these defenceless tiny birds will be shot. Birds like the one below.

Sadly our unethical laws, implemented by those who indulge in such barbarity, allows so-called hunters, usually the more affluent members of our society, to do this:

Did you know that “Grouse shoot operators – whose well-off clients can each pay more than £3,000 for a single day’s shooting – receive millions of pounds annually from the taxpayer via the Common Agricultural Policy?” Please read the following:http://www.animalaid.org.uk/images/pdf/booklets/callingtheshots.pdf – this document explains Animal Aid’s investigation into the public subsidies paid to millionaire grouse shoot owners. You can read more about other aspects concerning the gross injustice of these subsidies further down under the heading related links.

Until governments ban such barbarous practices we can never truly be considered civilised. It is not about freedom . No one has the right to kill another animal, banning such a practice is not taking away freedom from anyone anymore than denying people the right to kill each another.

Nine Reasons to Oppose Grouse Shooting

Killing birds for sport is cruel and uncivilised.

A large number of native birds and mammals who are perceived to interfere with grouse shooting are trapped, poisoned or snared. Victims include stoats, weasels, and even iconic raptors such as hen harriers, red kites and golden eagles.

An unnatural, heather-rich environment is created because the grouse thrive on young heather shoots. To create fresh young shoots, the heather is burned, which can harm wildlife and damage the environment.

The Committee on Climate Change has recently put a figure on the damage. Some 350,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide each year is emitted from upland peat in England, it noted,the majority of which (260,000 tonnes) is from areas that are being rotationally burnt.

The harsh ‘management’ of moorlands causes grouse numbers to boom. But as they overburden the landscape, they become weakened and fall prey to a lethal parasite – Strongylosis. This attacks the gut and leads to a collapse in the population.

A cycle of population boom and bust is the norm on Britain’s grouse moors.

Large quantities of lead shot are discharged, which is toxic to wildlife.

Grouse shooting estates use the Countryside and Rights of Way Act to restrict public access to mountain and moorland.

Grouse shoot operators – whose well-heeled clients can each pay more than £3,000 for a single day’s shooting – receive millions of pounds annually from the taxpayer via the Common Agricultural Policy.

To mark the commencement of yet another year of the legalised killing of these tiny sentient beings I have included a list of anti hunting quotes in the hope that in some way someone, somewhere, somehow will change his or her mind about hunting and see it for the barbarous brutality it is.

As long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other.
Pythagoras

Hunting is a relic of the barbarism that once thirsted for human blood, but is now content with the blood of animals.
Christian Nestell Bovee

When I was twelve, I went hunting with my father and we shot a bird. He was laying there and something struck me. Why do we call this fun to kill this creature [who] was as happy as I was when I woke up this morning.
Marv Levy

“Wild animals never kill for sport. Man is the only one to whom the torture and death of his fellow creatures is amusing in itself.”
James A. Froude

“Hunting is not a sport. In a sport, both sides should know they’re in the game.”
Paul Rodriguez

“When a man wants to murder a tiger, he calls it sport; when a tiger wants to murder him, he calls it ferocity.”
George Bernard Shaw

“I ask people why they have deer heads on their walls. They always say because it’s such a beautiful animal. There you go. I think my mother is attractive, but I have photographs of her.”Ellen DeGeneres

“There will be no justice as long as man will stand with a knife or with a gun and destroy those who are weaker than he is.”Isaac Bashevis Singer

“Deer hunting would be fine sport, if only the deer had guns.”William S. Gilbert “Killing animals for sport, for pleasure, for adventures, and for hides and furs is a phenomenon which is at once disgusting and distressing. There is no justification in indulging in such acts of brutality.”
His Holiness the Dalai Lama

“When a man wantonly destroys one of the works of man we call him a vandal. When he destroys one of the works of god we call him a sportsman.”
Joseph Wood Krutch

“The squirrel that you kill in jest, dies in earnest.”
Henry David Thoreau

The fascination of shooting as a sport depends almost wholly on whether you are at the right or wrong end of the gun.”
P.G. Wodehouse, The Adventures of Sally

“Wildlife, we are constantly told, would run loose across our towns and cities were it not for the sport hunters to control their population, as birds would blanket the skies without the culling services of Ducks Unlimited and other groups. Yet here they are breeding wild animals, year after year replenishing the stock, all for the sole purpose of selling and killing them, deer and bears and elephants so many products being readied for the market. Animals such as deer, we are told, have no predators in many areas, and therefore need systematic culling. Yet when attempts are made to reintroduce natural predators such as wolves and coyotes into these very areas, sport hunters themselves are the first to resist it. Weaker animals in the wild, we hear, will only die miserable deaths by starvation and exposure without sport hunters to control their population. Yet it’s the bigger, stronger animals they’re killing and wounding–the very opposite of natural selection–often with bows and pistols that only compound and prolong the victim’s suffering.”
Matthew Scully, Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy

Although I do not live in the Yorkshire Dales or other areas of grouse shooting I visit often and besides the awful feeling of knowing that every time I hear a gun shot an innocent animal has died for no other reason than to bring perverted pleasure to someone, it is unnerving in the extreme just to hear the very sound of the discharge of a deadly weapon. August is a busy time in the dales with increasingly more and more tourists, people who have come to enjoy the scenery, the peace and quiet, families with children who have come to hike or visit the many scenic and historic places in the area. It is not right that anyone should be exposed to the possibility of injury just so the privileged few can indulged in their sadistic pleasure. Just before publishing this entry my husband and I whilst collecting grass for our rabbit down a nearby, usually peaceful, country lane heard repetitive gun fire. There are few grouse here, maybe a pheasant or some poor rabbit or fox lost his life. So sad, so sickening and there was not a damn thing I could do. I couldn’t even see who was shooting or even the direction from which the shot came. There was also a group of children and their dog, gun fire is not a sound I would want my child to hear and a sensitive child could well be unnerved or frightened as indeed could an adult. No country should allow anyone to own a gun, no one for any reason whatsoever. Remember the case of Derrick Bird, a big brave hunter who normally shot defenceless rabbits, who went on the rampage and killed several people in Cumbria:

People who knew the 52-year-old loner say he prided himself on his shooting ability although he never boasted of his prowess. Bird’s friend Stephen Gillespie, 43, said: “Derrick used the guns for hunting. He liked to shoot rabbits, rats and pigeons out in the fields. He looked at it as helping the farmers but he was obviously getting a sick thrill out of it.”

Obviously every person who hunts is not going to go on a killing spree – other than the helpless animals he or she kills of course. However neither would Bird if he did not have ready access to a weapon.

Make no mistake these people whom you are likely to bump into in the countryside at this time of year are armed with a deadly weapon. For the sake of animals and indeed other people it is time to ban hunting in all its hideous and loathsome forms.

Time to ban guns, time to ban the murder of animals, until we do so we will never truly be civilised.

All you hunters out there consider taking a camera rather than a gun – prove you are not the sadistic psychopaths you appear to be. Maybe strong words you say, unfair, but really if your first thought when looking at a tiny defenseless bird, a deer or a rabbit is to kill it than there has to be something wrong with you – at the very least you have failed to recognise the preciousness of life for all creatures.

“Animals give me more pleasure through the viewfinder of a camera than they ever did in the crosshairs of a gunsight. And after I’ve finished “shooting,” my unharmed victims are still around for others to enjoy. I have developed a deep respect for animals. I consider them fellow living creatures with certain rights that should not be violated any more than those of humans.”
Jimmy Stewart

Related Link

This cash for grouse scandal shows how Britain has become a plutocrats’ paradise
We subsidise the landed gentry and their shotguns. While the poor are plunged into brutal insecurity, the rich are untroubled

…David Cameron has intervened to keep the cost of gun licences frozen at £50: a price that hasn’t changed since 2001.

The police are furious: it costs £196 to conduct the background checks required to ensure shotguns are issued only to the kind of dangerous lunatics who use them for mowing down pheasants, rather than to the common or garden variety. As a result they – sorry, we – lose £17m a year, by subsidising the pursuits of the exceedingly rich.

…the government announced it would raise the subsidy it provides for grouse moors from £30 per hectare to £56. Yes, you read that right: the British government subsidises grouse moors, which are owned by 1% of the 1% and used by people who are scarcely less rich.

While the poor are being forced out of their homes through government cuts, it is raising the payments – across hundreds of thousands of hectares – that some owners use to burn and cut the land (helping to cause floods downstream), shoot or poison hen harriers and other predators, and scar the hills with roads and shooting butts.

While the rest of us can go to the devil, the interests of the very rich are ringfenced